Why Sarah Palin should not leave the room

posted at 11:30 am on August 23, 2009 by Doctor Zero

When I began writing for Hot Air, I never imagined I would find myself critical of Charles Krauthammer twice, after only blogging for four months. I’ve followed his work for years, and still eagerly read everything he publishes. He writes brilliantly on many topics, but he just doesn’t get Sarah Palin, or by extension her supporters… which by further extension means he misunderstands the precarious moment America finds itself in, and the opportunities that lie ahead for conservatives.

Let me dispense with the most controversial part of Krauthammer’s recent Town Hall column first: this condescending nonsense about asking Palin to “leave the room” while “we have a reasoned discussion about end-of-life counseling.” There’s only one group of people who needs to leave the room during that discussion, and it’s the socialist zealot in the White House, along with the craven cowards in his party. They’ve already demonstrated a remarkable gift for swiftly leaving the room when people start asking tough questions, so we’ll hardly notice when they slink out. Maybe while they’re gone, they could find the billions in Cash for Clunkers money that vanished into thin air.

Those Facebook pages she’s tossing around like ninja throwing stars are eloquent proof that no one has the right to pat Sarah Palin on the head and send her out of the room, while the grown-ups settle down to serious talk. She isn’t just writing snarky rants. She’s providing both devastatingly effective criticism, and substantial policy alternatives. It’s fairly obvious the White House paid a great deal of attention to her infamous “death panel” column. I haven’t seen that many people turned into nervous wrecks by Facebook since the last time the “Mafia Wars” servers went down.

As many others have noted, Krauthammer begins his latest essay with his bizarrely offensive demand that Palin “leave the room,” then spends the rest of the essay essentially agreeing with her. It seems fair to say that his problem is more with her style than her substance. He misconstrues the “death panel” comment in a manner that suggests he might not have read her original Facebook posting. The “death panel” solar flare occurs in this paragraph:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

There is no doubt Obama and his allies want to drive the United States toward a single-payer health system. Some of his more colorful co-conspirators, like Barney Frank, aren’t particularly cagey about it when they speak in front of friendly audiences, and Obama himself has expressed that desire in the past. A health-insurance industry dominated by a tax-subsidized public option, whose vampiric “providers” can re-write the laws of the industry to destroy their nominal competitors, will inevitably collapse… leaving only the government. Tossing a shark into your aquarium is not a good way to enhance “competition” among the fish. When America inevitably loses enough blood to lapse into a single-payer coma, there will be rationing, and that means government functionaries will decide how the limited pool of medical resources is allocated. I don’t think “death panel” is an unfair metaphor for the resulting system, and the sense of dread it provokes in the listener is entirely appropriate.

The death panel doesn’t have to take the form of nine robed Sith Lords, stamping your grandmothers’ termination orders with a giant red skull, then handing them to a ghoul in surgical scrubs. It will be no less deadly if it consists of thousands of faceless government drones in cubicles, processing Quality of Life spreadsheets and crossing out the unlucky Social Security numbers with pink highlighter pens. In fact, my only quibble with Palin’s prediction is that, given the style of the current Administration, it is much more likely that we’ll have a Death Czar. Using the same Noonan-swooning judgment that gave us a tax cheat for Treasury Secretary, Obama will appoint a serial killer to the position. The Death Czar’s first official act will be spending $2 billion in taxpayer dollars to hire a Brazilian company, which will extract organs from Americans after they receive their end-of-life counseling, then ship them overseas for use in foreign patients.

What Palin brings to the health-care debate is the energy, wisdom, and wit to make complex ideas understandable to ordinary people. Let me once again restate my admiration for Charles Krauthammer before saying, with regrettably brutal candor, that Sarah Palin had more impact on the health-care debate with one Facebook note than everything Krauthammer has written in the past year. That’s not because people are shallow, and didn’t pay attention until Palin kicked off a media firestorm. It’s because they understandably seek out leadership on complex issues, and leaders have a knack for rendering fearfully complicated issues down to their essential truths. Ordinary Americans are more eager to entertain appealing speech from an engaging personality, than sign up for a long series of dry lectures, no matter how brilliant the lecturer might be… and they don’t view their ballots as comment cards, to be completed on their way out of the lecture hall.

Every political movement needs both academic intelligence, and vital charisma. The Left has always viewed the relationship between its intellectuals and politicians as something like the production and marketing departments in a business – and when it comes to accumulating power, socialists are all business. People like Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers spent decades weaving the strings that control the Obama marionette. They openly wrote of their understanding that savvy merchandising would be needed to make the public accept their agenda, at least until the public no longer has a meaningful choice about accepting it. When was the last time you heard a leftist intellectual belittle a popular liberal politician, the way Charles Krauthammer treated Sarah Palin?

The challenge for conservatism is to educate the voters in its basic principles, since they received no such education in the public schools. Conservatism always triumphs on the elementary questions of freedom and capitalism. The ideas of the Left are diseased in root and branch – history has shown there is no need to allow them to blossom, in order to see they are poisonous. Conservatives who allow themselves to be dragged into bickering about page 945 of a 1200-page bill have already conceded far too much of the debate. Americans deserve better than being told to sit down and shut up, while Washington plays Jenga with Obama’s obscene health-care proposals. They should be angry and insulted their time and money were ever wasted with this madness.

If Obama were the CEO of a private company, he would have already been “asked to leave the room” by the shareholders, and he’d be driving home in tears, listening to voice mail messages from the company lawyers. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to dispose of corrupt and incompetent elected officials… which is why they should be provided with the smallest possible operating budget, watched like hawks, and kept out of everything that isn’t their explicit Constitutional duty. We can begin the process in 2010, and finish it in 2012. I’d like to have both Charles Krauthammer and Sarah Palin in the room while we prepare for battle. I know she won’t ask him to leave.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.To see the comments on the original post, look here.

There can be no doubt that the French took a page out of our book for that one, right?

Geochelone on August 24, 2009 at 12:23 AM

The French Revolution was almost the exact opposite of ours, in every substantive way. Even after seeing what we did and how we were structuring ourselves, the French went off the deep end in some strange attempt to prove their perfection. Not at all atypical for the French. They didn’t follow us, which is why they went through their revolution only to bring more terror and chaos to their population than they had experienced before, ended up with a dictator, and are now in their 5th republic, already.

Yes, Revolution creates an instability by virtue of a power vacuum. Then it seems anything can happen from that point if not enough leaders with wisdom, foresight and honor seize control.

Geochelone on August 24, 2009 at 12:48 AM

Exactly. We got very lucky to have the singular group of geniuses and individualists that led us through our Revolution and fashioned our uniquely individualistic Constitution for us. I don’t ascribe it all to luck, though, as it was the individualistic character of our society that made these men even possible and in the positions necessary to bring the US and the US Constitution to the world. But the French thought themselves too good to follow our lead.

The French revolutionaries were driven by very different motivations, with their absolute hatred of the Church, and christianity in general, being one of the greatest. They were so crazy in their attempt to destroy the church that they even introduced a new calendar that would render all biblical notions dependent on the days of the week obsolete and unworkable. The French Revolutionary calendar had weeks with ten days, days with 10 hours, hours with 100 minutes, … all in an attempt to prove their superiority (new humans, as it were) and to destroy the church and christian influence, as the seven day week is an integral art of all church functions.

This is part of why I think the current Washington junta sees themsleves as the French Revolution, reborn. There are too many similarities between what they want to do and what the French Revolution tried, in vain, to establish. But .. following failed systems is not foreign to the left, and their odd love for the French fits right in.

The Obots stopped raving about their Messiah months ago. They chewed off all their bumper stickers too.

Geochelone on August 24, 2009 at 12:04 AM

Have you noticed that too? I started noticing that I haven’t been seeing all the Obama bumperstickers about a month ago, and was unsure if I was imagining things.

Yes, it seems that liberalism may meet its Waterloo through Obama. I was just thinking that in the future, we will be able invoke his name to describe any candidate that is socialist. “He is another Obama”, will strike terror into the hearts of voters. They’ll be reminded of a one-term, Jimmy Carteresque, inept, power mongering socialist, who was found out to be an Empty Suit within six months.

This is part of why I think the current Washington junta sees themsleves as the French Revolution, reborn. There are too many similarities between what they want to do and what the French Revolution tried, in vain, to establish. But .. following failed systems is not foreign to the left, and their odd love for the French fits right in.

progressoverpeace on August 24, 2009 at 1:02 AM

Wow, very interesting about the rabid French revolution and its similarity to our own leftists. That the French revolution was so bloody and ruthless reflects their godlessness.

Those Facebook pages she’s tossing around like ninja throwing stars are eloquent proof that no one has the right to pat Sarah Palin on the head and send her out of the room, while the grown-ups settle down to serious talk. She isn’t just writing snarky rants. She’s providing both devastatingly effective criticism, and substantial policy alternatives

Hey to Christian folks willing to give Sarah at least a little consideration, join the prayer warriors for Palin. Let’s see what God will do with her life and family. She’s taken all the enemy can throw at her and is still fighting. Pray for His wisdom to flood her and for His strength to support her and her family. And may she stay tight to Him.

2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him.

They were so crazy in their attempt to destroy the church that they even introduced a new calendar that would render all biblical notions dependent on the days of the week obsolete and unworkable. The French Revolutionary calendar had weeks with ten days, days with 10 hours, hours with 100 minutes, …

progressoverpeace on August 24, 2009 at 1:02 AM

Holy Crap. That is insane. So 10 o’clock would be midnight? They would still have off for the entire month of August, right?

It’s wild stuff. I can’t say that I have problems with metricization, but the point of this calendar was just to destroy “the old ways” to an end, in itself.

Here’s the wiki page for it. One of the principals in the calendar, Romme, had this to say about the general way of dating for millenia:

“This nomenclature is clearly a monument to servitude and ignorance, in which each successive civilization has left an imprint of its impoverishment. The astrological names of the days of the week and their cabalistic order which has been preserved since the first Egyptians and by the impostors which profited thereby and the blindness of men who continually preferred to suffer rather than change any of the idiotic habits of their fathers would dishonor our Revolution if we did not maintain the vigilance which has so successfully attacked all preconceptions.”

Yep … Everything must go! Mindless change for change’s sake. Sounds familiar, though none of today’s leftists are nearly as eloquent. But throw a few “wee wee”s and “stuff” and “racist” in there and it could come out of Washington, today.

Yep … Everything must go! Mindless change for change’s sake. Sounds familiar, though none of today’s leftists are nearly as eloquent. But throw a few “wee wee”s and “stuff” and “racist” in there and it could come out of Washington, today.

Wow. Ten pages of comments.
I don’t have to read thru to know that many felt stung like me to read that CK just dissed her like that.
I mean: We’re used to liberals and Manhattan conservatives doing that.
But when someone you’ve come to trust does the sort of liberal reflex, condescending dismissal we expect from the NYT types, it hurts.
Especially when it’s aimed at our sole female national Republican figure, a rare political talent, when she’s obviously using some rhetorical license, when what she is saying does in fact ring more true than the bulk of commentariat product….
What Krauthammer wrote wasn’t ill considered, it was worse.
There was precious little considered.

I have a lot of respect for “The Hammer” and I vaule his opinion, but I think he’s too much the intellectual to really “get” Sarah Palin. But that’s all right because Sarah gets to Obama and the Dems, and she connects with the people who do get her — and that’s what counts.

I too like Krauthammer, but Doctor Zero is dead-on in his analysis. Palin is being effective, and she’s backing herself up nicely. It’s the whole “elitist” phenom all over again, I fear. And some conservatives need to learn that lesson all over again, apparently.

I agree so much that I was actually prompted to finally post a comment here on Hot Air.

Republicans just can’t help themselves going after other republicans before they call a liberal a liberal. No wonder we keep losing elections and giving the leadership of our country who have just just one goal when they get there; Screw the american people! Republican have got to get on the same page before democrats rewrite the the book!

Maybe I missed it — I confess I don’t go to the Green Room often, to avoid being a complete HA junkie — but I haven’t seen Doc Zero’s piece on the terrors of Global Warming yet. Newt lost a lot of us on that stupidity.

Ann claimed in many other threads that she supports this socialism (despite being conservative or moderate) b/c the insurance companies are evil and purposefully increase the cost of health care.

Then she claimed that her dying mother was basically abused by evil doctors after her insurance money.

So, for those keeping score at home, the insurance companies are evil and therefore we need socialized, gov’t run health care.

And, the doctors are evil and therefore we need socialized gov’t run health care.

She also claims that people are “being dumped at shelters” who are denied health care and some friend died of aids b/c he could not get health care.

So, we need socialized gov’t run health care b/c allegedly there are all these people being dumped at shelters to die. Funny, the statistics do not bare that out whatsoever.

Also, never mind that aids is almost totally a disease that can be avoided by responsible conduct – she wants you and I to pay for its expensive care.

She claims to be a saint who works tirelessly at some charity and based on her sainted experience there we need socialized gov’t run healthcare.

funny how all her experiences lead her to believe that socialism and gov’t control is the best – but she claims that it is all a moral obligation and we are, by implication, mean and evil b/c we disagree that gov’t (a) should be in the business of providing health insurance or (b) can do so well or efficiently.

She does not understand that gov’t run healtch care will lead to rationing and worse care for everyone, rather than good care for the very few who are currently uninsured. And the 47 million figure is a complete lie. The figure is much, much lower.

She says she does not understand us and would have to “walk by us on the sidewalk.” Ann, you don’t understand us b/c we are honest, we have values, we understand economics and history and we do not worship gov’t or Obama.

I do not believe you had a friend die of Aids, I don’t believe you work for any charity (I rather find that liberals actually do any of the dirty work they want the rest of us to pay for), I do not believe your mother had any trouble with doctors. I do not believe you read history, of if you do, I do not believe you understand what you read. I do not believe you “have a conservative streak”. I do not believe you are posting anyting on this board in good faith.

You have demonstrated no good faith by being unwilling to actually engage in debate, instead offering pity platitudes and cliches. When asked a direct question, you will not answer it directly. Instead, you provide fake anecdotes of personal suffering.

Trying to pretend to be a “moderate” who simply thinks the right is wrong “on this one issue” is the oldest lefty trick of the blogospehere. It is transparent and you are not particularly good at it.

If anyone reads through Ann’s comments on this thread and others, you will see that she has contradicted herself dozens of times on her main arguments, never answered any question, never offered any analysis to demonstrate she understands anything, and continuously falls back on the “I am “moderate / conservative” and therefore you should all be persuaded by my enlightened opinion.

I rather find that liberals actually do any of the dirty work they want the rest of us to pay for),

Should read – “I find that liberals rarely actually do any of the dirty work they want the rest of us to pay for.”

by this I mean, in all of my volunteering experience, I have found the other volunteers are almost always religious and conservative – I have almost never met a liberal getting their hands dirty actually helping people. Liberals instead what to lecture the rest of us and have the gov’t take our money and do the work. they don’t want to actually give (statistics bear out that conservatives give much, much more $$ to charity) and they don’t want to actually interact with the great unwashed.

They want to feel good by having gov’t do it and lecture the rest of us on how we should want the gov’t to do it.

Never mind that ever “charitable” thing the gov’t does ends in a complete disaster, causing more suffering than doing nothing would have caused (see, welfare).

How about the brilliant Charles Krauthammer’s plan? I heard him on Hugh Hewitt Friday supporting a proposition that would turn all health insurance companies into public utilities. This would be a compromise position to which Republicans could agree, he says. I almost fell out of my chair. My first thought was how does this increase competition? How many choices do you have in who to buy your electricity or natural gas from? Of course this is a guy who thinks Sarah Palin’s use of “Death Panels” was highly inflammatory and did not contribute to the debate. My ass, I says. She changed the debate. This is what we get from our elite “thinking” conservative clique of which Rick Moran is attempting to join. Color me unimpressed. Great article Doc Zero. Why can’t the Right realize we have a very determined enemy that will stop at nothing to establish an all intrusive government that will mean tyranny for us all? Squabbling over how one of us phrases their objections while totally losing sight of the fact that we all must stick together to defeat the Left is, well, self-defeating.

Great article! I sent an email to Krauthammer stating essentially the same points. Why do some of these conservative pundits think they are so much smarter than everyone else? Just because they can write? They would do better to lower themselves to the level of the people they evidently disdain and exhibit a little common sense….

Krauthammer is a condescending snob, who likes to pretend he is a deep thinker….
Rode Werk on August 23, 2009 at 11:44 AM

This nails it. Kraut is a DC elitist who panders to the other DC elitists, routinely. He has more in common with Ochavez and the DC crowd than he does with everyday conservatives. Time for Charles to leave the room.

The facts are in….Dems and Republicans are the enemy of the constitution and limited government. Both parties have increased the size of government thoughout the decades until we have reached the point where this monster is sitting at our front door waiting to come in and finally take complete control. In this case the boiling frog has noticed the heat before he is cooked and is looking for a next move.

Krauthammer and any other Republican sycophant can get out of the way. The definition of shaking things up means rejecting party loyalists when they try steering the people’s revolution.

This has been our problem all along. We have been lemmings to politicians and pundits. As much as I appreciate many of these people, I’m through being a ditto head.

Conservatism always triumphs on the elementary questions of freedom and capitalism.

In what universe is this statement true? It surely is false in ours. Conservatives believe in neither freedom nor capitalism–as evinced by Sarah Palin’s record as governor of Alaska, and the McCain/Palin platform, among other things.

Yeah, well good for you. I’m sure you know the name of your local GOP HQ chair. I’m so sick of concern trolls saying how much they hate both parties, while they obviously aren’t involved in local politics. At least not as Republicans.

AGIA is a free market solution. The Alaskan Permanent Fund is capitalism, and it was introduced over 30 years ago by another Republican governor. Palin’s first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to the partners of gay state employees. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska’s AG on the constitutionality of the legislation. So, hicsuget IS DEMONSTRABLY WRONG.

In what universe is this statement true? It surely is false in ours. Conservatives believe in neither freedom nor capitalism–as evinced by Sarah Palin’s record as governor of Alaska, and the McCain/Palin platform, among other things.

hicsuget on August 24, 2009 at 9:36 AM

As you send your comments from the 16th dimension.

Please say your name backwards and return at once from whence you came.

The Democrats live and die by their Alinsky tactics. If the Conservative movement ever makes any kind of hay they always find a scapegoat and mercilessly slaughter it. When Sarah opened her mouth on healthcare they pounced. Their tried to turn the healthcare debate into a debate about Sarah Palin. “Look at what the idiot said again”. She had a point, but it didn’t matter.

By keeping Sarah out of the room we might life he11 for the Alinksy democrats. They cannot wage war on the American people. Let them call us nazis, or evil-doers, or fascists.. they’re killing themselves doing it.

By keeping Sarah out of the room we might life he11 for the Alinksy democrats. They cannot wage war on the American people. Let them call us nazis, or evil-doers, or fascists.. they’re killing themselves doing it.

tflst5 on August 24, 2009 at 10:27 AM

I like your strategy: roll over and play dead. It has worked so well for the GOP in the past./sarc.

While I disagree with Allah quite often (although usually I keep it to just quietly muttering to myself) he’s a good balance.

The Republican party, just like the Democrat party, is a coalition. There *are* atheist-Republicans, and the Religious types forget or diss them at their own peril. The reverse is also true, which I’m pretty sure Allah gets.

tflst5 on August 24, 2009 at 10:27 AM
—–
Did you actually *read* Alinsky, or are you just quoting the oft-quoted “Identify, freeze, kill” bit?

Yes, Palin is an easy target to identify and try to freeze. I think you’d agree, though, that she’s far from dead.

The thing that amazes me is the number of people who mingle the ideas of “death panels” and “end of life counseling” when they’re actually quite separate.

The latter is plainly spelled out, giving an incentive to doctors to discuss options other than “heroics”. While I don’t like the idea, having dealt with the death of one elder parent, I see the point to discussing the elephant rather than letting it hide in the corner.

The former, “death panels”, is not the same thing at all, but instead refers to those who will decide about the rationing of health care that will, eventually, take place, and who *WILL* as the cost spirals, decide who doesn’t get care.

Health care is rationed now, ladies and gentlemen; it just uses ability to pay as a proxy instead of whatever reasons the “death panels” will choose.

Sorry, but I prefer politicians who do not believe the world is 6000 years old. She is one of the reasons I left the republicans. Bunch of dinosaurs that need new blood.

antoniojvr on August 23, 2009 at 3:20 PM

Hey, moron, that was a hoax and you apparently fell for it. That says more about you than it does about Palin. Next time, do a little research before you spout off and make a fool of yourself. Glad you left the party. One less cringe-worthy idiot to deal with.

Health care is rationed now, ladies and gentlemen; it just uses ability to pay as a proxy instead of whatever reasons the “death panels” will choose.

No, very often, it uses your willingness, not ability, to pay, and the market is thoroughly distorted by things that require, inter alia, 22-year-old college graduates to subsidise the fertility treatments of a 45-year-old who couldn’t figure out that she’s better off having babies sooner rather than later.

Back to the “willingness” to pay part: your health, food, and shelter should come first. First. Anything else – newer car, bigger house, buying instead of renting, etc – is a value judgment that one’s life does not matter as much as those things. Alternatively, it’s a gamble that one won’t actually get sick and need health coverage (or health care), but there’s no reason why everyone else should help out someone who loses that gamble. It would be like socialising losses at Caesar’s Palace.

How can you affect meaningful change in what is clearly a broken system when you insist on playing within the boundaries of the same two party system that brought you this lovely mess?

Because the two-party system is not the problem. Revolving doors are the problem. Corruption is the problem. Not holding politicians accountable for their actions or holding them to their campaign promises is the problem.

Neither party is perfect, but our government as envisioned by the Founders is the closest thing to perfection you will find. And the Republican party is the de facto libertarian party. That’s reality.

The Tea Party movement understands this point and is holding both sides of the isle accountable.

Goodeye_Closed on August 24, 2009 at 9:54 AM

It’s A-I-S-L-E. When you get married, you walk down an aisle. Same goes for shopping at the supermarket or voting. We are not talking about islands.

The Tea Party movement is made up of Democrats who feel betrayed and of Republicans who will not remain silent. Some people are having their political awakening. However, it is an issue that is being debated, much like the CRM and the Vietnam draft. It has nothing to do with parties, so what’s your point? It’s certainly not against any parties, except maybe the one in power.

I think Palin is inadequately supportive of capitalism and freedom, therefore I am an Obama-worshiping communist. Got it. You Palin groupies never cease to astound me.

hicsuget on August 24, 2009 at 5:08 PM

You’re the one who came to a Palin thread and started bad-mouthing her, so who has the fixation here? I agree with her point about Obamacare. I agree with her on energy issues and just about everything, and I’m certainly not alone. If her Facebook page can alter an outcome like it already did, then I’m certainly not alone in thinking Sarah Palin is a strong conservative voice and an advocate for capitalism and freedom.

I backed that up with examples from her time as Governor of Alaska.

AGIA is a free market solution. The Alaskan Permanent Fund is capitalism, and it was introduced over 30 years ago by another Republican governor. Palin’s first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to the partners of gay state employees. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska’s AG on the constitutionality of the legislation. So, hicsuget IS WRONG.

alliebobbitt on August 24, 2009 at 9:50 AM

So, you make some stupid comment

Conservatives believe in neither freedom nor capitalism–as evinced by Sarah Palin’s record as governor of Alaska, and the McCain/Palin platform, among other things.